ISE Award winner LSGE explains how it redesigned its global graduate programme to support future skills needs.

Following an acquisition in 2020, the London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG) grew from a 5,000 to a 25,000-strong organisation overnight.

The change provided an opportunity to design a new early careers strategy and graduate programme that would build a talent pipeline to support the organisation’s future skill needs, winning ISE’s Best Graduate Development Programme Award 2024.

The global strategy was co-designed with leaders across the organisation. It was driven by business need, informed by external research and Gen Z motivators.

It was important that the programme could support divisional talent strategies (reflecting priority skills and location) and provide an exceptional experience for both participants and the business.

The solution
Key to programme success is aligning skill development to organisational goals. Working with groups of leaders across all divisions identified global foundational skills that are crucial for all graduates to build in year one, and critical specialist skills that vary across divisions.

The foundational skills informed the design of the foundational pathway, which focuses on vertical development, building organisational knowledge and fostering connection across the cohort. Overlaid with the foundational pathway are the division-specific pathways which are based on business priorities. Currently 10 bespoke pathways exist (+4 launching in 2024).

Trish Cuddy, Group Head of HR, Post Trade and Capital Markets at LSEG explained, “Critical to Post Trade’s future success is maintaining our position as a leader in the external environment. We’ve identified the key skills to help ensure we can achieve this. The graduate programme is structured to support in building these skills, creating a bench of future talent to be aligned to key roles post programme.”

Flexibility in the framework enables application of the programme to new business areas and locations, as well as the incorporation of new critical future skills as the organisation evolves.

Programme design was informed by Gen Z motivators, for example:

1. Gen Z want ‘opportunity for rapid skill building’

With their people leaders, graduates complete a ‘skills scan’ on our award-winning digital skills platform at the start and end of the programme to evaluate their proficiency levels for the priority skills identified by division. This exercise serves as a springboard for creating development plans and measuring progress.

2. Gen Z want ‘to be part of a community and have purpose’

The regional cohorts unite at a mid-point offsite, to create connections, engage in focused skills development and build self-insight.

One 2023 LSEG said, “This past week, I had the privilege of participating in IGNITE 2024. It provided me opportunity to build connections within my graduate cohort and the wider organisation. While at Ignite, I was a part of a finalist team selected to present a sustainable business solution. Through our presentation, my colleagues and I were given a platform to discuss our ideas around equal economic opportunity for women and reintegration of employees after parental leave.”

Leadership capability: the biggest determinant of graduates’ experience is their manager. Managers need additional skills to help graduates flourish. Our bespoke upskilling programme for graduate people leaders aims to provide insight into Gen Z, build coaching skills and a community of practice.

A 2023 people leader said, “These sessions are extremely useful. I like the part about coaching…so much of what we are doing is affecting the grads’ personal as well as professional development.”

Impact
To ensure continuous improvement and monitor progress against programme objectives; quarterly programme performance dashboards review graduate performance, graduate experience on programme and business impact.

Quarterly reviews allow for ‘just in time’ changes and pivots to be made to help enhance experience for participants.

To ensure the programme continues to meet the talent and skills priorities of the organisation, annual end to end design reviews are completed ahead of the incoming cohort joining.

Below are some impact metrics on the programme;

• 8-fold increase in programme participants in one year
• 4.5x growth in programme locations in one year
• 35% increase in offer acceptance rate in one year
• 42% increase in intern conversions in one year
• LSEG’s growing brand reputation in the UK was also recently recognised in our shortlisting for the TargetJobs 2024 award, ‘Most popular graduate recruiter in Banking, Insurance and Financial Services’, which is voted for by students
• 100% of graduates said they would recommend IGNITE and people leader feedback confirmed graduates return from the offsite more confident.
• 74% of technology graduate projects are aligned to CLOUD and/or development languages – both critical future skills prioritised by the division
• To date 130 people leaders have been upskilled. 100% of respondents agreed it’s helped prepare them to develop their graduate.

You may be interested case studies from other ISE Award winners